


stay

by slightlyworriedhuman



Category: The OA (TV)
Genre: Ambien abuse, Drug Abuse, Drugs, French is a good friend, Hallucinations, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Unreliable Narrator, bad trips, the slash is kind of implied, this is absolutely based off my own experiences so don't do drugs kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 14:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18662149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightlyworriedhuman/pseuds/slightlyworriedhuman
Summary: His fingers shake when he tries to hit Steve’s contact, and he isn’t sure that he even hit the right number; still, his phone starts to ring, and he raises it to his ear. The walls shift again in resounding cracks, and he can’t stifle the thin wail of fear that accompanies the calm ringing on the phone, a soft scream that dissolves into tears that steal away all rational thought.or, Jesse finds comfort in French when he needs it most.





	stay

**Author's Note:**

> A quick warning: Please read the tags for all content warnings, as this is kind of a vent fic. Heavily based off my own experiences with drug abuse. Don't do drugs, kids.

Jesse was more than aware of the risks of popping pills. He’d seen what it could do to some of the kids at his own school; even Steve sometimes refused to sell harder shit to people, circumstances permitting. But as time had passed since the angel’s death, since the shooting in the cafeteria, things had gotten more difficult for Jesse. Pot wasn’t enough to keep his monsters at bay; sometimes, he could imagine that the drug was doing nothing at all to stave off the anxiety than ran like an underlying current around him at all times. Things were better on the outside, sure; the five of them had remained friends, even welcoming Angie into their group with welcome arms. They had become friends, bound by their experiences with the angel. Nothing could take that away, and the support of friends was something Jesse had rarely experienced outside of Steve.

But that didn’t change the fact that sometimes, Jesse woke up shaking and gasping for air, bruises blooming on his chest from where his hands had slammed the movements into his body as they had at the cafeteria. That didn’t change the fact that every time he heard a door slam or a car backfire, he was brought back to a gun pointing at his face, thrown into bouts of nausea at the mere memory. That didn’t change the fact that no matter what he did, he couldn’t escape the underlying itch beneath his skin of hopelessness and anxiety and so much terror it was a wonder he could even function.

Nothing could get him out of the hell his own mind had trapped him in. He’d read up on it: PTSD, an occurrence in which events are stained into one’s memory like blood in a white carpet. Sometimes, he imagined the angel and her lover carving the movements of the universe into their skin, imagined the movements they had enacted in the face of death carving themselves into his hippocampus. They had scrawled the movements into their skin to never forget; he wished every day he could fill in his own scars to never remember. But he did. And so it went, day by day, forcing himself through every step, every action, every word with the smell of gunpowder stuck in his head. 

He was well aware of the risks of popping pills, yes. But he was also well aware of the risks of staying stuck in that day forever, over and over and over again. When he finally gave in and went a half hour out of his way to the nearest city to get a baggie of wrongfully prescribed ambien, he told himself that one bad was worse than the other, and he was choosing the one that would hurt least. When he laid in bed that night and slid a pill from the bottle with fumbling fingers, popped it in his mouth and swallowed it dry, he didn’t really know what to expect. Anything would be better, really; a night of peaceful sleep, a feeling of relaxation he hadn’t experienced in months, a high that was enough to distract him from the snakes that writhed in his stomach whenever he even looked at the cafeteria at school.

A half hour later, he was listening to music from a dying phone, curled up on his bed and laughing giddily to himself. In the morning, he woke without tears on his pillow for the first time in weeks. 

It wasn’t a problem, he told himself when he looked through his phone and saw odd texts to Steve (thankfully unsent, oh, he had never been happier for his shitty service). It wasn’t a problem, he said when he found himself downing the pills like a child would candy as soon as the bad feelings began to come back at night. It wasn’t a problem, he whispered when he nearly broke down at school and found himself huddled in the bathroom, wishing desperately he could pop a pill right then and there, consequences be damned. 

It really was, no matter how much he wished it wasn't. He found out that consequences couldn’t go ignored, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how desperately he hoped this was his solution.

It’s almost midnight when he finds himself stuck in an even worse situation, exacerbated by the drugs. A bad trip doesn’t even cover it; it’s a waking nightmare, a living hell. He’s curled on the couch, alone at home; Ali is long gone at a friend’s house, and he’s frighteningly alone in a house that seems much too big and much too loud. His sobs echo through the empty rooms, loud and desperate and full of fear. Shaking hands clutch at the cushions on the couch, at his shins that are drawn up to his chest, at his disheveled, thick hair.

Terror is the strongest emotion in his confused, disorganized mind; it runs in loops around his head, scratching at the inside of his skull, freezing his blood as it courses through his body. Every creak of the house in the wind is a gunshot in his ears, and he almost screams every time the noise occurs. He’s scared, he’s so  _ scared,  _ and he can’t look away from the couch cushion opposite where he’s curled up because every single time he closes his eyes all he sees is the barrel of the gun, the cracks in the window surrounding the angel, the eyes of a dead woman floating in a bathtub. Everything is so loud, so overwhelming, and he thinks he might just die of the overstimulation, of the world pressing in on him from every side. 

The house shifts again, gunshots ringing in his walls, and he moans in fear, hands rising to clamp over his ears as he hiccups again. The tears running down his face are burning, and he somehow feels like they’re carving lines into his skin, memories of his self-induced torture. PTSD: a carving of memories into your brain, your flesh, every fibre of your being until it consumes you whole. Isn’t that what he had read? Isn’t it? He doesn’t want to be consumed whole, but it seems he is anyways; consumed by fear, consumed by drugs, consumed with the knowledge that his death is inevitable when he follows this path. Is this how he will die? He thinks it could be; trapped alone, drugs coursing through his system, fingernails digging into the soft flesh above his ears, sobs ringing through his house.

Would he be okay with that?

The realization that he genuinely doesn’t  _ know _ brings another sob, another flood of misery. He doesn’t know if he would be okay, and the mere fact that he can’t tell himself without a doubt he wants to live is painful,  _ terrifying.  _ With a shiver that shakes his whole body, he reaches for his phone where it lays on the table, blindly fumbling for it until he can turn it on. When the screen finally blinks on at him, he chokes back another sob, trying to blink  past the haze of tears and drugs to find his contacts. He just needs someone here to convince him he does want to live, just needs reassurance that he won’t die alone. He’s lucid enough to realize that if this night goes on any longer, he’ll wind up doing something bad, and honestly, he would rather do that in a sound mind. It’s a miracle that he can even hold onto that thought for more than a few seconds, honestly; every thought that slips through his mind is like oil sliding through his fingers, separating and pulling away and falling apart, leaking away slowly.

His fingers shake when he tries to hit Steve’s contact, and he isn’t sure that he even hit the right number; still, his phone starts to ring, and he raises it to his ear. The walls shift again in resounding cracks, and he can’t stifle the thin wail of fear that accompanies the calm ringing on the phone, a soft scream that dissolves into tears that steal away all rational thought. When the ringing stops with the soft click of someone picking up, he can barely keep himself from just bursting into tears over the phone; instead, he forces himself to speak past the sobs stuck in his throat, past the fear that threatens to strangle him and swallow him whole. 

“Steve, please, I—” Another shift of the house, and it’s all he can do not to scream. “—please, please, I need—I don’t—” Why had he called again? Why was he so scared? Why did he feel so goddamn terrified? “—I need you to—I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t, I—please, I can’t—” He can’t stop the broken sob that rises in his throat when he tries to continue, pushes past it with a desperate need to convince Steve to come save him. “I don’t know what’s—what’s happening, please, I just—please, please, I need you, someone, please—” 

“I’m coming, I’m coming, it’s okay, I promise.” The voice on the other end of the line is scared, and it doesn’t sound like Steve, but Jesse can’t bring himself to care; another sob slips out as he chokes out, “Thank you, thank you, I just—I’m sorry, I’m sorry, thank you…” 

“Don’t apologize, it’s okay. I’m on my way, okay? Just stay there. I’ll be there soon, I promise. Just don’t do anything, okay?” There’s shuffling on the other end of the line, like they’re rushing to do something. 

“Okay,” Jesse whispers, wiping a tear away. The phone beeps off, and he slowly brings it down from his ear, trembling, eyes still wide as he stares at the couch cushions. He just needs to wait. Even with his mind spinning, he can do that. He can do that for now.

—

It’s an unpleasant surprise for French when his phone goes off almost at midnight, when he’s finally trying to get to sleep. He’s about to mute his phone and leave it for the morning, but when he makes out Jesse’s blurry name on his screen, ringtone softly playing, he pauses, staring at the unfocused light. Jesse never calls him; lately, he’s barely even texted outside of a few strange things at night that are complete non sequiturs to anything else they’ve chatted about. Wind rustles the leaves outside his window, and after a moment of hesitation, he taps the answer button, bringing it to his ear. Before Jesse even speaks, French can tell something’s wrong; the breathing from the other end of the line is shaky and uneven, as if Jesse’s trying to choke back tears.

“Steve, please, I—” Jesse’s voice is shaky and tearful, and it cuts off in a whimper as wind blows audibly outside. Does Jesse think he called Steve? Should he tell Jesse he called the wrong number? Before he can speak, Jesse continues. “—please, please, I need—I don’t—” A shaky inhale from the phone is enough to get French to shoot up and slap his hand around on his bedside table for his glasses. “—I need you to—I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t, I—please, I can’t—” The words themselves are more than enough motivation to get French to nearly fall out of bed in an effort to stand and find his pants, and the sob that follows seems to send ice through his veins straight to his heart. He’s never heard Jesse like this. Sure, he’s comforted Jesse a few times after the incident in the cafeteria; they had all comforted each other, had all needed to recover in their own ways. Jesse, though, seemed to take it the hardest, somehow; French had been watching his friend lately, watching as he seemed to shrink into a shell of isolation. This, though… this was new. It was scary, honestly; he had no clue what would be bad enough to prompt Jesse to finally reach out for help, what would send him into this state of tearful hysteria. “I don’t know what’s—what’s happening, please, I just—please, please, I you, someone, please—” French can hear the sob rising in Jesse’s throat, and he speaks before he can think.

“I’m coming, I’m coming, it’s okay, I promise.” He hadn’t known what he was going to do until the words tumbled from his mouth; as soon as they leave him, though, he knows that this is exactly what he has to do. His friend needs him; it's simple. He can hear the fear in his own voice, fear for Jesse, fear for what he’s going to find. 

“Thank you, thank you, I just—I’m sorry, I’m sorry, thank you…” Jesse’s apologies dissolve into mumbled whispers, and French forces himself to dismiss the heat in his eyes when he reassures Jesse, “Don’t apologize, it’s okay. I’m on my way, okay?” He finally manages to pull on sweatpants and force his feet into his shoes again, grabbing his jacket from the back of a chair. 

“Just stay there. I’ll be there soon, I promise.” A sudden stroke of fear that he’ll arrive too late to stop something undefined in his head hits him, and he adds, “Just don’t do anything, okay?” as he shrugs on his jacket. He hears a whispered “Okay” from Jesse, and after a moment, he forces himself to hang up, shoving the phone in his pocket and throwing open his door to dash down the hallway. As he rushes down the stairs to the door, wind shakes the house around him, and he pulls his hood down before stepping out, beginning to hurry to Jesse’s house. His fear is undefined but strong; he’s not sure what to expect, just knows that he has to help. He  _ has  _ to.

The wind whips around him as he jogs up the street, stronger than its been since their last storm. Its ferocity pushes against French on all sides, but despite the violent gusts pushing him about, he continues until he reaches the threshold of Jesse’s house. He doesn’t bother knocking; from how messed up Jesse had sounded on the phone, he isn’t sure Jesse would even be able to hear him. 

A wave of warmth compared to the freezing air outside welcomes him when he steps into the house; as quickly as he can, he closes the door, trying to keep the chill out. There’s a light on upstairs, and French can faintly hear weeping. He follows it, warily calling, “Jesse?” There’s a soft sob as he jogs up the rest of the stairs, and the sight he’s greeted with hurts his heart. Jesse’s curled on the couch facing away from him, hands clamped over his ears, rocking ever so slightly back and forth. His shoulders shake violently, though the weeping is muffled. Another gust of strong wind buffets the house, and French’s heart clenches as Jesse moans in abject terror, another sob rising. His feet move before French’s mind can process what he’s doing; he walks over to Jesse and crouches beside him on the floor, slowly raising a hand to set it on Jesse’s elbow. 

“Hey, Jesse?” Jesse recoils immediately, a shriek tearing from his throat; his eyes, previously focused on the couch before him, flicker to him as if viewing a ghost, and he presses back against the couch. “Whoa, whoa, hey—” He grabs hold of Jesse’s other arm, raising himself to sit next to him on the couch. Jesse’s hands are still clamped over his ears, hair tangled around his fingers. Letting his hands slide up to Jesse’s, French slowly brings them away from his ears, before brushing stray hair away from Jesse’s pale face. With a sinking heart, he sees that Jesse’s pupils are blown wide open, beyond the boundaries of fear; French is no stranger to the horrors of bad trips, and if the lack of the smell of pot is anything to go by, this isn’t just something that will pass quickly. He fights to keep the concern hidden by kindness on his face when he says softly, “It’s okay, Jess, I’m here, okay?” Jesse’s breath is quick, uneven; the way his eyes dart over French’s face makes him feel like he’s not even really seeing him. 

“Steve?” His voice is choked, thick with tears and tight with fear; oh, French wasn’t sure what he was expecting to find here, but this just hurts his heart. 

“No, no, it’s—it’s French, Jesse. I’m here for you, okay?” He squeezes Jesse’s hand reassuringly. The fear on Jesse’s face is still strong, somehow making his face look even younger than it already does.

“French? How… did you make it?” French pauses a moment to parse the oddly worded question; it sounds like the sentence jumped tracks halfway through, a malaphor of common words.

“You called me, remember?” Jesse opens his mouth to reply, but the house creaks again with a sound of creaking wood like shots, and all that comes out is a thin yell of fear as Jesse flinches back, eyes wide. Another sob erupts from his poor, shaking frame, and, not knowing what else to do, French scoots closer, pulling Jesse close and wrapping his arms around him. “Hey, hey, shh, shh, it’s okay, alright? It’s just the house. It’s just the wind. You’re okay.” There’s a moment of hesitation, then French almost flinches in surprise when Jesse shifts to lean against him, more broken cries finding their way into the air around them. He feels Jesse’s hands ball in his jacket, feels a patch of warmth where he knows tears are seeping into the front of his jacket, and holds Jesse tighter, mind whirling. Fuck. He doesn’t know how to deal with this; he doesn’t know what to do with a friend who seems absolutely petrified, how to comfort him properly when he’s out of his mind on  _ some _ drug. Jesse starts saying something, and French has to lean down slightly to hear his words.

“I don’t—it’s the gun—please—I don’t know how it, it left but it—” Another shuddering sob cuts off the jumbled words. Is it the sound of the house creaking that set this off? “I don’t know what to  _ do _ , please help—help me, I don’t—it’s—I just—” French cuts him off with another gentle shushing, pulling back slightly to look at Jesse. 

“I’m here, okay? I’ll help you. Okay? You’re not in the cafeteria, okay? It’s just the wind. You’re home, okay?” He stares intently into Jesse’s blown pupils, feeling like he’s falling into the vivid black. “I’m here for you.” 

A moment passes, and then Jesse slowly falls onto his shoulder, shoulders shaking as his arms wrap around French. It’s heartbreaking, seeing his friend like this; the muted weeping against his shoulder is enough to make French want to scream, to sob, to raise the earth until Jesse feels better. All he can do, though, is furiously blink back tears and shift on the couch, grabbing Jesse’s legs and pulling them over his own thighs so he can hold Jesse closer. He doesn’t even realize that he’s speaking soft words of reassurance into Jesse’s ear until his voice breaks on a tear: “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m here for you, okay, Jesse? I’m here, tu vas bien, I’m here for you. It’s okay. I’m here.” His voice cracks, but he swallows the lump in his throat, continues to murmur gently into Jesse’s ear. It’s impossible to know how much time passes until his sobs seem to quiet; French’s throat is sore, his eyes stinging from unshed tears. Finally, Jesse slumps against him, and French pulls back ever so softly to look at him. His eyes, once wide and full of painfully vivid terror, are closed, though tears still leak from beneath his eyelashes. Gently, French moves back to where he was, letting Jesse rest against him; god know he needs it. One arm is around Jesse’s shoulders in an embrace, the other resting on his thigh where it had been rubbing soft, soothing circles; eventually, French lets his eyes close, the aching in them dulling as warmth slips out. He’ll stay here with him until Jesse wakes, hopefully more lucid, hopefully less achingly terrified. 

He can stay.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @jesse-mills. Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
